Wanted to get off the road over the Thanksgiving holidays so we looked for a campground to hole up in. Guess what? The weather here in South Carolina is so miserable in the summer - high humidity and temps - that folks camp more in the fall than the summer, and this wonderful campground -- James Island County Park, near Charleston -- is usually booked solid during that time. With the weather being so mild, we didn't care if we were in the dry-camp overflow area or not, but managed to get a spot with power and water for each of the 7 nights we were there.
We were at this park 17 years ago during the first week that the campground was open. We recalled the friendly rangers and how convenient it was to get into downtown Charleston. At that time, the roads and RV sites were newly laid beach gravel, complete with beautiful whelk shells, and there was no foliage to speak of. (Of course, that was just one year after Hurricane Hugo blasted this area.) But we did remember their holiday light show.
It's just gotten bigger and better!
3 million lights on a 3 mile driving tour with many themed areas: candyland, sealand, toyland, dinosaurs, musicland, spaceland, nursery rhymes.
"Little extras" - lights high up in the trees: musical notes, stars, candycanes, autumn leaves.
Animated displays: a fire-breathing dragon, a dinosaur eating branches from a tree, chasing alligators, sharks!, a strutting peacock, a segue from the town's old bridge outline to their new suspension bridge, and marching nutcracker soldiers.
And some fun ones: santa hitting a golf ball across a field, old man winter blowing across a field lighting trees in white as the cold breath went past them, and Rudolph measuring a chimney opening and letting Santa know that there is no way he was going to get down there. (That particular display was sponsored by Weight Watchers.)
There are 5 drive-thru arches: snowflakes, icicles, Christmas bulbs.
We see on "Good Morning America's" holiday light topic that they will be visiting James Island's light show. Stay tuned.
